![]() ![]() The idea was that during a lunar eclipse, if sailors observed the shadow of the moon crossing a particular point on the surface at 3:03 p.m., but they knew that in another location, such as Paris, the same crossing would occur at 3:33 p.m., then they could calculate their degrees of longitude away from the known location of the city. The seafaring nations at the time were desperately searching for a way to measure longitude at sea, and it was thought that the moon could provide a solution. Mapping the moon was one of Hevelius’s first major undertakings. Esteemed visitors such as Edmond Halley, whose many accomplishments include predicting the return of the comet that bears his name, came to visit and meet with Hevelius, hundreds of miles from other epicenters of astronomy in Paris and London. As he both acquired and built elaborate astronomical instruments, this “Star Castle” became one of the greatest observatories in Europe at the time. Given his significant wealth from the family brewing business, he literally put his beer money toward science. ![]() In 1641, Hevelius constructed an observatory on the rooftops of three adjoining houses that he owned in Gda ńsk. On his deathbed, Krüger encouraged Hevelius to devote his life to astronomy-words that sparked an illustrious career. But Peter Krüger, a teacher who had introduced Hevelius to astronomy, reignited a celestial longing in the young man. He returned to Gda ńsk in 1634 and became a merchant, eventually entering public service as a city councilor and then mayor. Hevelius’s father expected him to become a businessman in the family trade of brewing, and at age 19 he went to study law at the University of Leiden. The inscription reads, “Jan Heweliusz.”Ī statue of Johannes Hevelius in Gdańsk, Poland.Ĭlaus-Joachim Dickow / Wikicommons via CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Catherine’s Church, there is a statue of a mustachioed man with a pointy beard gazing at the sky and holding antiquated astronomical tools. Today, the fairytale-like port city is known as Gda ńsk. Hevelius was born in 1611 in Danzig, on the coast of the Baltic Sea in what was then the Kingdom of Poland. And according to Johannes Hevelius and His Catalog of Stars, published by Brigham Young University Press, Pope Innocent X said Selenographia “would be a book without parallel, had it not been written by a heretic.” Of course, like Copernicus before him, Hevelius believed that that the Earth orbited the sun. The Italian astronomer Niccolo Zucchi even showed a copy of the book to the pope. Published in 1647, Selenographia made Hevelius a celebrity of sorts. He conducted these observations, as well as others for a comprehensive star catalog, using his own equipment in a homemade rooftop observatory. More than 300 years before humans stepped onto the moon’s surface, Hevelius was documenting every crater, slope and valley that he could see with his telescope. Selenographia was the first book of lunar maps and diagrams, extensively covering the moon's various phases. But Johannes Hevelius, as we call him in the English-speaking world, has been somewhat more forgotten among history’s great scientists. The book, titled Selenographia, was created by perhaps the most innovative Polish astronomer since Copernicus. As I delicately place the volume back in the box, the covers leave a light brown residue on my fingertips-a small remnant of one man’s quest to tame the moon. Between the well-worn leather cover boards, I find some of the first detailed maps of the lunar surface, illustrated and engraved in the 17 th century. ![]() At one point, the book belonged to Edwin Hubble, who revealed that galaxies exist beyond our own and that the universe is expanding, among other things, at nearby Mount Wilson Observatory. In the rare books collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, a large tome tied with string sits in an ivory box that looks like it came from a bakery.
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